Man Sentenced to More Than 3 Years After Pleading Guilty to Unauthorized Use of Stolen Car Identified by Flock, Fleeing Law Enforcement While on Probation

NORFOLK, Va. — Kenneth Maurice Vines, 40, pleaded guilty last month to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and fleeing from law enforcement when he ran away from officers who had pulled him over earlier last year for driving a stolen vehicle identified by the Flock license plate recognition system. Mr. Vines was sentenced to serve 24 months in jail for both of those misdemeanor offenses as well as another one year and three months in prison (from a previously suspended sentence) for having violated the terms of his probation at the time.

Around 10 a.m. on April 17, 2025, the victim discovered that his rental vehicle — the keys to which he believed he may have left inside — was missing from outside his residence. The victim provided the missing-vehicle information to Norfolk Police and, just after 3:30 p.m. that day, officers received an alert from the Flock system that it was being driven near the intersection of East Princess Anne Road and Tidewater Drive. Officers located the vehicle stopped in traffic and pulled over Mr. Vines, who was the driver. When the officers got out of their patrol car and approached the stolen vehicle, Mr. Vines got out and ran away without putting the vehicle in park, causing it to roll forward and hit another car. The officers caught and detained Mr. Vines shortly thereafter.

On Dec. 9, Mr. Vines entered an agreement to plead guilty to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle as well as fleeing from law enforcement, both misdemeanors. Judge Jennifer L. Fuschetti accepted Mr. Vines’s plea agreement, found him guilty, and continued his sentencing hearing to Dec. 12, on which date Mr. Vines also had a hearing regarding probation violations from prior offenses. The victim supported the plea agreement, and there was no agreement as to the sentence Mr. Vines would receive.

On Dec. 12, after hearing sentencing arguments from the Commonwealth and Mr. Vines’s defense counsel, Judge Fuschetti sentenced Mr. Vines to serve 12 months in jail — the maximum penalty for a misdemeanor — for each charge and suspended no time. Mr. Vines also pleaded guilty to being in violation of probation for his prior offenses, and Judge Fuschetti revoked one year and three months of a previously suspended sentence for Mr. Vines to now also serve in prison. All of those sentences will run consecutively to one another.

“Mr. Vines was wrong three ways in this case: using a car without authorization, leaving the car in gear to endanger other people, and violating his probation,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “Mr. Vines will now serve over three years in prison for his offenses. I hope that after he serves his sentence he makes better choices and can put these offenses behind him. I express my appreciation to the Norfolk Police for their diligence and note, once again, that the responsible use of the Flock camera system led to the arrest, within mere hours, of someone in possession of a stolen car. Thanks in part to Flock and to good police work, auto thefts in Norfolk fell 41% in Norfolk in 2025 compared to 2024.”

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Bailey C. Ottinger prosecuted Mr. Vines’s 2025 case, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Abigail L. Ottinger prosecuted Mr. Vines’s probation violations, and Norfolk Police Detective Logan T. Gardner led the investigation.

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